


Why are you smiling?

by SemiramisAudron



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Self-Doubt, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 02:19:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemiramisAudron/pseuds/SemiramisAudron
Summary: After Dan has been defeated, Danny tries to find out why he would be such a monster to begin with, by talking to him.This leaves Danny's mind busy with dark thoughts.Short self-reflection/doubt drabble done around 2007 for a phan-forum





	

"Accept it! Just finally accept it! They're dead! Your plump father, your annoying teacher, Tucker, your sister... the sweet, precious little Samantha and as well your mother! It's done! It HAS happened! Not in this time,... but in mine it has. Fine, fine! So you set a switch for your little happy-train, led _your_ timeline in another direction. All fine, but _MY_ timeline still exists! Even though you made sure all is peachy creamy, just sunshine and lollipops.. even though... it was YOU who made sure it was going there in the first place! Not now, not here, but in another time!"

  
Why did he do that? Why did he tell him that?

  
Danny did not understand why he was doing that, but the message was clear. And it was clearly etching itself into the ghostboy's brain. In the last weeks, he had been visiting Clockwork's tower several times to speak to his darker self. To talk with the imprisoned Phantom. Tucker claimed it as good idea. One should know one's enemy, study him and know his every ticks and quirks, just in case... of a case of emergency...  
Sam deemed it as a terrible idea... perhaps she was right...

  
Again Danny returned from the Ghostzone with his face as pale as if he had literally seen a ghost... but he had only spoken one, one that was poisoning his brain. Was he trying to weaken him? Did he plan his escape from the thermos and the time guardian's custody?  
Would Clockwork allow that?   
Clockwork, the ghost that had never really been inspiring confidence, never really seemed reliable to Daniel?  
Why did he not annihilate Phantom?  
Why did he keep him in that Thermos?   
If he knew everything before it happened, did he knew if it was predestined for Phantom to free himself?  
Was that why he had not destroyed him yet?

Since weeks he regularly returned to Phantom... and since weeks he found no sleep... those questions tormented him... only one question burned in his guts even stronger than the others...

  
Why had he murdered them?

  
It was no secret he didn't like Lancer, but killing him?... He wasn't that bad!... Why did he kill his parents? Why Jazz? Why Tuck? And most of all, why Sam? Phantom had been so powerful, none of them could have meant any danger to him. No one could have been in the way of his plans... or could they? Could his parents have been able to stand up to him? Could Sam and Tucker have been able to help them? His parents? His friends? Did they have to die because of that? Was Phantom's... Danny's hate so tremendous?  
Why did they have to die? **Why?**

He had asked Phantom that... Every time he had asked him that and every time, the ghost had only smiled. An unearthly smile that did not belong to Danny, a smile that did not even seem to belong to Phantom, he smiled and silenced himself. For this Danny hated him the most. He felt himself in Phantom, felt his ghostly half, almost felt what it thought and experienced... and he hated himself for it, hated himself for not getting an answer. No affirmation, no declination of his theses... just smiling and silence...

_"Because I hate them..."_

Danny jolted up, again he had dreamt of Phantom, Phantom who at night had crept into his room and strangled him in sleep... with a smile on his lips... Danny Fenton sat upright in his bed, panting for air, soaked in cold sweat. It had been a terrible nightmare and it was haunting him every night, the smile was haunting him every night...

_"Because I hate them, Daniel... That is the answer..."_

Danny's eyes widened in horror. But he was awake. Wasn't he?... Where did that voice came from? Had Phantom finally escaped. Had he finally come? Come to kill him? Would the nightmare finally come to an end?

In his room stood a shadow, the shadow of a man...   
" _It was never your fault... You can feel it, am I right? That part of you, Danny Phantom... But use your brain just once, boy! Pointed ears, crimson eyes, vampiric fangs, fair hair, ponytail and beard..."_

Danny tried to make out details in the shadow, a familiar form maybe...  
He saw fair hair... and a smile that looked all too familiar... His body stiffened...

_"You see all that and you think a symbol on a jumpsuit makes **you** the dominant part..._   
_Why? Because I hate them, Daniel. Because they should have been mine. The friends and the teacher **of my son... my daughter, my wife... my friend** Jack..."_

Danny just sat there and stared unbelieving into that smile, that smile in those cold eyes...

_"I love your mother as much as I despise your father Daniel, for what they are... and I hate your mother just the same for what she is not... Don't let yourself be persuaded that their death had been your fault... Do not condemn the wrong part... It had not been **your** hate that killed them..."_

That couldn't be. Phantom was Danny... Phantom wasn't...

_"You only hate whom you have loved once..."_

All Danny saw, was a wry smile, a smile that haunted him every night in his dreams, could feel his cold breath in his throat... then these ice-blue eyes had disappeared into the darkness...  
"Vlad..."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the translated version of my German contest entry to the Phantomboard's third fanart/fiction contest (hosted by ~Merida)  
> This time it was either using a quote or a part of a songtext for the submission... Well I made a songfiction about Ghostwriter last time anyway so this time I chose a quote...
> 
> "Man hasst nur wen man einmal geliebt hat."  
> It's a quote Meri gave us from a German named Fritz Georgen. There is no official English translation for it but you will find mine in the text so... I wont say it here so you'll have to read it hur hur hur ^^  
> I don't know, the text might be a bit dark, maybe a bit angsty... I'm not sure... at that time I felt like writing it and maybe it suffers because some things might have gotten lost in translation. I tend to chose words specifically for one purpose and sometimes there is just no English word that suits my intention well enough...
> 
> I know this piece of art might seem odd and perhaps a bit out of canon but... perhaps not... who knows ^^
> 
> It's rather short you might say but that is because of the contest rules... Maximum 1 page DIN A4... and I had to work hard to keep it short... (and failed still somehow...)


End file.
